The Trump administration is ignoring a cancer epidemic hiding in our drinking water. For years, we have known that nitrate, a colorless and odorless contaminant, gets into our drinking water and poses an array of human health risks. And we know why: this contamination comes mainly from fertilizer and manure from industrial agriculture. Our nitrate drinking water standards lag behind the growing public health research, leading EPA to initiate a health assessment process in 2017 to reassess what risks the pollutant poses to public health. That assessment was abandoned by the first Trump administration, then revived by EPA under the Biden administration. Now, in Trump’s second term, his administration appears to have scuttled the health assessment again, but this time, more fatally as EPA has dismantled its entire independent scientific research wing where an assessment like this would have happened. Communities across the country will pay the price.

In the face of Trump’s callous indifference to Americans’ health and welfare, Food & Water Watch is taking action. In June, we sued Trump’s EPA to demand that it turn over records related to the nitrate human health assessment, its status, and how it has been affected by Trump and DOGE’s gutting of the agency. People have a right to know if their drinking water is safe, and the government has an obligation to be transparent to the American public. We are fighting for that transparency in court.

EPA’s nitrate assessment

After initiating an assessment of human health impacts associated with ingesting nitrate and nitrite in 2017, EPA paused the study under the first Trump administration in 2019. It was later revived by the Biden administration in 2023. Now, it appears the nitrate health assessment is again a casualty of the Trump administration’s war on science and public health. After announcing a “reduction in force” (i.e., mass layoffs) and the elimination of EPA’s independent scientific research wing, the Office of Research and Development, this kind of critical public health research has come to a screeching halt. EPA has stated that it does not have a date for the release of the draft assessment.

The assessment is critical because it was part of EPA’s process to establish the hard science supporting more protective drinking water standards. While not strictly necessary for EPA to adopt more protective standards, when the agency conducts assessments like these, the results are very useful to determine and support new standards that require water providers to reduce contamination at the tap. We know that there is a nationwide nitrate pollution crisis that can only be solved through stronger standards and better regulation of factory farm pollution. By scuttling this assessment, the Trump administration is handing yet another giveaway to Big Ag polluters at the expense of regular people across rural America.

Our attempts to keep EPA transparent

We requested records about the nitrate assessment through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in August 2025 when staffing cuts and an EPA reorganization were first announced. EPA stonewalled the request, blowing past FOIA’s response deadlines and refusing to produce a single document. After 293 days, we sued the agency for violating FOIA. Trump claims to head the most transparent administration in U.S. history, but actions speak louder than words.

The dangers of nitrate in drinking water

EPA has long acknowledged the threat that nitrate in water poses to humans and set a legal limit of 10 mg/L decades ago. However, more recent research shows that dangers persist well below that limit. The primary focus has long been on a single health effect known as “blue baby syndrome.” Nitrate converts to nitrite in the body, which can prevent oxygen distribution in a person’s blood and can be potentially fatal if infants ingest too much nitrate. But the risks go far beyond blue baby syndrome. We now know that nitrate is associated with a variety of cancers, including colorectal cancer. Nitrates also interfere with thyroid function, affecting hormone production and neurological development.

Given these dangers and EPA’s inaction, we are taking the agency to court to get answers. Transparency is only the first step; Food & Water Watch will continue working for better regulation of polluters and improved drinking water standards to protect people across the country. We deserve to know what is in our drinking water and whether what comes out of the tap is safe. We will not let Trump and his cronies scuttle public health protections in secret. 

Food & Water Watch is represented in this matter by the public interest law firm Eubanks & Associates, PLLC and Food & Water Watch senior staff attorney Tyler Lobdell.